Tunisia

Government Education Organs & Agencies: Besides the Ministry of Higher Education already described, the Tunisian public education system includes first and foremost the Ministry of Education as well as several other ministries whose functions also include the administration of training and educational programs and programs serving children and youth. These are the Ministry of Youth, Childhood, and Sports, the Ministry of Women's and Family Affairs, and the Ministry of Professional Training and Employment. Like the Ministry of Higher Education, all the other education-related ministries consist of complex bureaucratic structures serving specific functions and goals.

Because of its central role in administering public education in Tunisia, discussion here will focus on the Ministry of Education. This Ministry was most recently reorganized in 1998 and is composed of a ministerial oversight committee (comite supérieur du ministère), a board of directors (conférence de direction), and a permanent evaluation committee coupled with the following structures: the cabinet, the general, administrative, and financial inspection department, the general department of common services, specific services, general departments, and a National Commission for Education, Science and Culture. Each of these ministerial organs is likewise composed of various sub-units, including regional departments to some extent so the Ministry's work can be appropriately decentralized.

Educational Budgets & Expenditures: In the 1990s Tunisia spent about 19 percent of the national budget on education, 7 percent on healthcare, and 6 percent on defense. In the mid-1990s government expenditures on education were equivalent to 7.7 percent of the GNP, and preprimary, primary, and secondary education expenditures accounted for 79.7 percent of all public funding for education. At the turn of the millennium, educational expenditures reportedly were almost 30 percent of the total national budget, which allocated 60 percent to social expenditures. In 2000, approximately 3.54 percent of Tunisia's national budget of about US$7.256 trillion went to the Ministry of Higher Education. The World Bank loan granted to Tunisia in 2000 for the Education Quality Improvement Project, valued at US$99 million, represented additional funding for education, supplemented by other grants and loans provided to Tunisia in the form of overseas development assistance for educational programming and improvements.